MILTON, LOCKE AND THE NEW HISTORY OF TOLERATION

For three centuries now, John Milton and John Locke have been hailed as heroic advocates of religious freedom. Securely ensconced in the pantheon of liberal icons, they continue to be enlisted in the cause of liberty. In the wake of 9/11, a number of writers have retold the tale of how enlightened progressives rescued the West from the forces of theocratic repression. Milton and Locke loom large in that story. They have starring roles in Perez Zagorin's study of How the Idea of Religious Toleration Came to the West (2003), and they feature prominently as “two champions of liberty” in the philosopher A. C. Grayling's book Towards the Light: The Story of the Struggles for Liberty and Rights that Made the Modern West (2007). Whig history is not dead yet. Indeed, Grayling is refreshingly honest about his old-fashioned liberalism—in the British edition, his book's dust jacket is laid out like the title page of a nineteenth-century pamphlet: “By Mr. A. C. Grayling. London. Printed in the Year 2007”. © 2008, Cambridge University Press. All rights reserved.